


an airing of grievances

by twelvemagpies



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bofur/Nori/Dwalin (mentioned), Fíli/Ori (mentioned) - Freeform, Kili/Tauriel (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, Oral Sex, bilbo b baggins: i’m not a therapist BUT, bilbo works through his own issues by working through everybody else’s issues, dwalin gets around what can i say, except kíli actually kíli’s well-adjusted as shit, past Dwalin/Thorin (mentioned-ish), the communication skills of greater erebor need some work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-11-16 13:02:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20818352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twelvemagpies/pseuds/twelvemagpies
Summary: Bilbo extends his stay in Erebor to wait out the winter and aid with the reconstruction however he can: namely, by creating quite a problem of his own.





	an airing of grievances

**Author's Note:**

> god if i didn't post this tonight i think i would've sat on it for another month or something lmao, my acronym for this in my drive is aaog and coincidentally that is the emotion i felt while writing about 70% of it. (tbqh i think my favourite part of writing this was taking all the weird sayings i use in real life and giving them to bofur)
> 
> also, about a zillion and a half thanks to rené for their feedback! you're the best, thank you for listening to me spin out about this behemoth fjdsklaf i swear i'm working on the bogginshield thing too

At first, as Bilbo tells anyone who’s willing to stand still long enough to listen, he'd stayed to make sure Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli kept on this side of the Halls of their kin. 

He's never been particularly fervent about faith before. Eru and Yavanna and Aman Itself exist in his purview largely to supplement his small cache of muttered curses, but Bilbo’s been reliably informed that it's already made its way into a ballad or two about how he'd stumbled to his knees and muttered earnest—if perhaps a bit vehement—thanks at any Valar listening when the healers had finally told them that Durin's sons would live. (Fíli had seemed more distraught that a side of his carefully braided moustache had been sheared off than by the fact that the blow had been meant to cleave his head in two, and had decided the scar it left curling up his cheekbone was delightfully rakish.) Bilbo couldn’t in good conscience just pack off home without a look backwards until he was certain the lot of them would live long and healthy lives giving him a full head of grey hairs with their foolhardy heroics.

And then, he'd stayed because the alpine air did wonders for his own recovering wounds. Balin had at least had the good sense to let Bilbo alone while they’d waited for word on Thorin and his nephews; he’d been half-feral with worry and adrenaline, and the company had kept a close orbit to spare Bilbo the attentions of healers and gawkers alike. But by the time Dwalin bodily hauled him from Thorin’s tent and into Oin’s brusque care, he’d worked his way from perhaps pouring a bucket of cold water over his head and a draught of something for the pain to a week’s rest and hourly applications of poultices that made his eyes water for the infections he’d let set in.

And then he’d stayed because the passes were far too snowed in to warrant travel, and then because Gandalf had up and spirited away to Rivendell again for a meeting of the great and mighty (or so Bilbo supposes), and then because Thranduil started making trouble under the pretense of playing nice while both Bard and Thorin were still too haggard to stop Bilbo from sharpening both his tongue and his impeccable Baggins manners against the Elvenking in their stead, and then— 

Well and by _ then, _there had been so much more to do! Merchants and workers began pouring into Erebor by the dozens almost immediately and with them came meetings to attend with Balin, treaties to draft with Ori, no-holds-barred brawls over guildhall space to break up with a stern word from Dori and occasionally a judiciously applied rapping of knuckles (also from Dori), and— 

And if he’d sent instructions for the care and keeping of Bag End in his absence and didn't specify when exactly he would return, what about it? Travel across Middle Earth is unpredictable at best, as Bilbo well knows. Best to make the most of his time here while he can, he thinks, though not that his dwarves had done anything but make him feel welcome! Whether it's out of a general dwarven camaraderie or because of Nori’s swift work spreading (heartily exaggerated, in Bilbo’s opinion) tales of his bravery and quickwittedness, Bilbo’s not sure, but Dáin’s forces and the endless chain of dwarven caravans have done nothing but treat him with the utmost respect and rib-shattering familiarity. 

In fact, the whole of the mountain seems to be operating under the assumption that Bilbo isn’t planning on leaving at all.

And _ then— _

"Bofur—Bofur, you—” Bilbo smacks his lips, propping his head up with his hand as the room spun merrily around him. “You must understand, Bofur, we Baggsinses—Basiggens—hmm, _ Bagginses—_we pride ourselves on being _ excellent _ houseguests." 

Bofur hides his grin behind his cup, reaching a steadying hand out to catch Bilbo’s elbow as he ricochets from the armchair to the table where they’d left the liquor. He’s nowhere near as drunk as Bilbo, and for that Bilbo is more grateful than mortified. Or at least he will be in the morning, when Bofur will be kind enough to pretend Bilbo had kept more of his wits about him. “Aye,” Bofur agrees, “though I reckon I recall more’ve what you’re like as a host.”

“And I have been a good houseguest,” Bilbo carries on, oblivious, “haven’t I?” He makes it back to the chair with both his dignity and the bottle, more tipping backwards onto the cushion than making a concerted effort to sit. “I know I can’t cleave orc heads off with one fell swoop or throw boulders about, but I conit—contrib—” Bilbo scowls into his cup. “I help.”

“Aye, you do,” Bofur agrees mildly.

“Oh!” Bilbo looks up and it rocks him backwards. “You really think so?”

“I really do.”

“Thorin doesn’t think so.”

Bofur very nearly misses the low table that sits between their chairs, his cup tipping ominously towards the rug before he sets it firmly on the tabletop. _ “What?” _

“We Bagginses,” Bilbo tells him very seriously, wagging a finger in his direction, “are excellent houseguests.”

“Aye lad, you’ve said, but I don’t see how—”

“We _ never _ overstay our welcome!” Bilbo exclaims. He punctuates this fact with a dramatic throw of his arms, and decides Bofur’s wallpaper is quite lucky indeed that Bilbo’s cup is empty. (Then again, it's more likely that Bofur’s home has absolutely no wallpaper, and the dwarven liquor has put him a bit deeper in his cups than he’d care to admit.) “It isn’t done!” 

If Bilbo didn’t know better, he’d think Bofur was having a laugh at him, chuckling into his cup. “Perish the thought, of course.”

Bofur is a _ very _good friend, Bilbo thinks, slinging his legs over one arm of the chair to rest his head against the other. The ceiling tilts and whirls above him, Bofur and Bifur’s wooden creations moving like they have minds of their own, stories tracked across the rock in the firelight. The company had all been offered homes in the upper levels, close to the royal apartments, but Bofur had chosen to stay close to the markets and the mines. And while this whole mess of a mountain looks alike to Bilbo at the best of times, he can’t deny that the physical distance from this morning’s debacle is doing wonders to set his mind at ease.

Then again, the knowledge that Thorin is literally looming somewhere above him isn’t helping matters, and Bilbo gestures for Bofur to top up his cup again. 

“We’d—Thorin and I—we’d been talking. You know, as we do,” Bilbo waits until Bofur nods obligingly to continue, “now that we talk. Often, we talk often, it’s quite nice?” He frowns. “Was quite nice, or so I’d thought. I’d thought he’d thought so too, you know?”

“I know.” Bofur watches Bilbo peer pensively into his cup before prompting, “So you and Thorin were talking?”

“Yes! Galion had just come by with the latest treaties and Thorin was cross about it—not the treaties, I’m rather fond of that fruit the elves grow and glad they’ve agreed to trade it, he was cross with Galion,” Bilbo pauses, “Well no, I suppose, not with _ Galion _ but with his elf—his elven—his _ elfishness, _ you see.” 

“Thorin doesn’t like elves?” Bofur makes a puzzled noise in the back of his throat. “First I’m hearing it.”

Bilbo snorts despite himself. “Oh hush, you and your jokes! This is a serious business!” Thoughts on just the nature of this serious business and worse, having to explain it aloud to someone else and make it _ real, _ warrant a long pull from his cup. He’s pleasantly surprised it doesn’t burn going down nearly so badly as it did an hour ago. “The elves had gone and we were talking, and I said that I should've asked Galion to bring some books on gardening with him the next time. I planted that seedling that Tauriel had brought me, that flower with the purple and white petals? She’d said it was quite hardy and the elves call it eagle’s claw, so I thought it would be fitting.” Bilbo sighs. “A shame it died almost as soon as I’d planted it, but I suppose Erebor’s soil is still too ruined.”

“A cryin’ shame.”

Bilbo squints at the dwarf, but Bofur’s face is careful neutral for all he’s clearly poking fun. “Quite!” Bilbo says waspishly. “And so I’d told Thorin, and _ he _ asked—” Bilbo sets down his cup with a clatter; Bofur may or may not have wallpaper, but his rugs have narrowly missed a sousing for all the hand-waving Bilbo’s been doing. “He asked me if I thought the flowers might be something that I could grow in the _ Shire.” _

He stares at Bofur, waiting for his reaction. Bofur arches an eyebrow. “Well, are they?”

_ “Excuse me?” _

“Are they,” Bofur repeats, “something you could grow in the Shire?”

“I wouldn’t know it, but clearly Thorin is more than ready for me to find out!” Bilbo groans, pressing the heels of his hands to his cheeks. “To think I prided myself on all those hobbity niceties that you lot all tease me for, and I don’t even notice that Thorin has been trying to—to _ nudge _ me into leaving! But bless him, he’s been too polite to just show my freeloading arse the door!” 

“There’re a few things I think the king’d like to show your arse, freeloading or otherwise,” Bofur tells him after a pause, “but I don’t think it’s to the door. Besides, Bilbo, that’s an awful lot to take from words that weren’t actually said.”

“He didn’t need to _ say _ it, it was quite clear what he _ meant—” _

“Now look here, Bilbo,” Bofur tells him sternly (or, at least, as sternly as someone can while making a slow but inevitable slide from their chair to the floor), “you’re being sharp as a bag of wool and twice as thick.” Bilbo blinks at him. “You and Thorin are pointing at opposite ends of a mule and both calling it the ass!” 

“Bofur please, not all of us have silver tongues!” Or at the very least leaden ones with which to beat the unsuspecting listener with metaphors that make no sense, but Bilbo keeps that to himself.

“Aye, says the hero who chased Smaug from the mountain!”

“From what I recall he was mostly chasing me, and quite a lot of it had to do with what I’d said to get him in a chasing mood,” Bilbo mutters. The lovely soft fuzz around the room is starting to eke out against the harsh shadows of the flickering firelight. “This is hardly the same thing.”

“I should hope not, Thorin doesn’t look very good in red.”

“Bofur!” A small, treacherous part of him would like to argue that Thorin looks good in every colour, thank you very much, but Bilbo suspects that little voice is what’s gotten him in this much trouble in the first place. It may well be why he can’t just do as he should have, as he’s being bid, and just _ go home. _

“I’m just saying—” Bofur ticks off the points on his fingers, “you’re good at talking, you two talk. So, lad, _ talk.” _

Bilbo likes Bofur a lot more when he isn’t saying things that make an awful lot of sense. “How much do I really even _ know _ Thorin, hmm?” He plows on when Bofur opens his mouth to argue. “We’re friends, yes! Or—” he grimaces, “or we were, until the, erm, the Arkenstone—oh and put that look away, Bofur, I know there’s been apologies and pardons and what-not gone all around, but—”

But how much of it is keeping up appearances, now that Thorin is king? Hard-won king at that, on an old-new throne in a new-old kingdom, how would it look to have dissent in the ranks of the company now, with more dwarven lords and ladies arriving by the day to court and treat and bargain? He knows Thorin, or he thinks he does, knows him in battle and in bickering and in his quiet, kind moments. But Thorin Oakenshield and Thorin II, King Under the Mountain, are two different dwarves indeed, and Bilbo Baggins may have outlived his usefulness to the both of them.

“A few months mucking about the countryside is hardly plenty of time to get to know a person, you must admit,” he finishes lamely.

Bofur’s mouth works in stunned silence for a long moment before he exclaims, ‘I most surely do _ not!” _

“And I’ve tried asking, just things! By-the-by things that friends ought to know about friends!” Bilbo adds hotly, working himself up now on the second wind of the liquor. “It’s not my fault your dwarves are such a secretive lot!” He barks out a laugh. “I even asked _ Dwalin, _ of all people, and I’m sure you can picture how well that conversation went.”

(If he’s being honest, he’d been having a perfectly pleasant conversation with Dwalin about the best way to fry a fish—lightly dredged in flour and pan-fried with a bit of lemon to finish; Yavanna help him, Dwalin’s a dear friend but any fool whose fry-up of choice was _ battered _ needed a stern talking-to—right up until he’d tried to turn the conversation towards Thorin. In his travels he may have grown accustomed to the way dwarves practically hung off each other every moment of every day, but even then it had obvious that Dwalin and Thorin moved in lockstep born of a deep familiarity.

For his own dwindling hopes and flagging sanity, Bilbo had wanted to know how—ahem—_deep _ that familiarity went. 

"So you,” Bilbo had hemmed and hawed and stared down at his ale, “you and Thorin, ah, you were—are—?"

"Shield brothers." Dwalin had fixed him a look over the rim of his tankard, like Bilbo was supposed to suss out the delicate intricacies of what all that entailed from Dwalin’s tone alone.

Bilbo had gone back to talking about fish.)

Bofur fiddles with one end of his moustache while Bilbo recounts the tale, looking thoughtful and nodding in all the right places and seeming altogether calmer than Bilbo feels the situation warrants. “Well,” he says finally, stroking his beard in a poor imitation of the elderly scribes who’d taken up in the Library and nearly driven Ori out of his mind, “if it settles your mind any, I doubt him and Thorin are shield brothers the way that, say, him'n me are.” Bofur pauses. “Y’know. _ Shield brothers.” _

"Oh?" Bilbo’s seen Bofur fight up close and personal more times than he’d care to remember, not least of all because he was usually trying his damndest to avoid being cleaved in two by an errant goblin sword or troll club at the time, but he hadn’t thought the dwarf considered himself a _ warrior, _ per se. As if he can tell that Bilbo’s connecting the wrong dots, Bofur waggles his eyebrows. _ "Oh!" _

“Aye, _ oh.” _ Bofur hauls himself up to sit more in his armchair than on the rug, propping an elbow on his knee to better rest his chin in his hand. “D’you know,” he starts, apropos of nothing, “I once took a wee fancy to you. But a wee little small one!” he hastens to add when Bilbo’s head whips up from contemplating the contents of his cup to stare at him incredulously. “Practically nonexistent!”

He means it to be reassuring, but Bilbo can do without the accompanying gesture of pinched thumb and forefinger, thank you very much. “I’ll have you know,” he admits, because this secret is so much easier to set loose, tears so very little out of him as it leaves, unlike bigger confessions for different dwarves, “I took rather a liking to you too, that first night.”

“Oh, did you now?”

“Yes, though it waned terribly right around when you tried to use my doily as a scouring pad.” It was gone completely by the time a voice like smoke had woven through his smial, singing a song that he could feel down to his very marrow, but Bilbo doesn’t mention that part. 

“Shame I set my eyes on hairier sights, then,” Bofur sighs melodramatically. “And taller ones too, though that one can’t be helped.”

“The former can’t be helped either, as you well know!”

“Y’grow hair on your feet well enough, innit?”

“And unless you’ve a mind to shear it and stick it elsewhere, Master Dwarf,” Bilbo replies tartly, hiding a grin behind his drink as Bofur cackles, “that’s exactly where it’ll stay!”

They sit in companionable silence watching the fire burn down until Bilbo asks, “Since when are you and Dwalin—?” 

Bofur shrugs. “Since I reckoned I'd best take my chance before some fool orc knocked my head off, I suppose.”

Bilbo rolls his eyes. “Since Bombur came to your senses for you and threatened to tell Dwalin if you didn’t, more like.” Bofur huffs and looks pointedly back at the fire as Bilbo laughs. Leaning back in his seat, he mulls over the idea of Dwalin and Bofur together—they got on well enough during the journey, if he remembers rightly, and Bilbo is quite comfortable in his tastes to admit they make a very _ handsome _couple— 

He jerks upright, pointing an accusatory finger at Bofur as one small key fact bobs up in the liquor-soaked haze of Bilbo’s thoughts. “Nori! Dwalin and Nori are courting!” When Bofur doesn’t so much as blink, Bilbo splutters, “The _ party—_we all—Dori made a big to-do of it just last _ month, _ said he’s been waiting damn decades for them to finally pull their heads from their arses and he’d be damned if he didn’t get to commemorate the moment!!”

“Aye, they sure did, and we three celebrated the affair more thoroughly afterwards than I think you’d like me to tell you, Master Hobbit.” Bofur pauses a moment, potentially reliving a fond memory of the night in question. “Right mountain of a dwarf, Dwalin is,” he adds, grinning, Bilbo recalls seeing Dwalin from atop a walkway earlier that day as he’d hoisted a block of granite onto his shoulder, all rippling muscle and glistening skin. "I reckon he's big enough to share.”

Bilbo settles back into the cushions, nodding to himself. “Right, well. Good. So long as it’s all proper.”

“Cross my heart, Master Baggins.”

This dwarven stuff must be potent, because Bilbo tosses Bofur a rude gesture and doesn’t feel a twinge of regret at the impropriety of it as Bofur cackles. Bilbo rests his chin in his other hand, murmuring, “I rather like Dwalin.”

“I'm glad you approve, I'm quite fond of him m’self.”

After a moment, much softer, Bilbo adds, “I rather like Thorin, too.” He watches Bofur putter about, moving their cups away and picking up the empty bottle, raising it to the light and considering it before moving it to his worktable. In a matter of days it’ll be something beautiful, Bilbo is sure. “D’you think he’ll let me stay?”

“Oh, Bilbo.” Bofur reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. “I reckon you’ll have to ask.”

Bilbo does not ask. Bilbo wakes up in Bofur’s armchair with a blanket so soft it’d put anything Mirabella Took could crochet to shame and a headache that feels like Bombur had used his skull for a cookpot, and promptly decamps to the cool, quiet Library to sit a while with Ori.

Who is, Bilbo finds, in the middle of a very collected, methodical nervous breakdown.

“Ori,” Bilbo starts for about the dozenth time, wincing as his own voice sends a jagged bolt of pain from temple to temple, “are you sure you wouldn’t like any help?”

“No, it’s alright!” Ori replies. Or at least, his disembodied voice does, floating over from somewhere in the stacks and piles and shelves. “I’m alright!”

Bilbo watches a flurry of dust spin out in a beam of light until the brightness stings at his eyes. “I can come back later, if you’re—” there’s a muffled clatter and the sound of something heavy being overturned, “—busy.” 

Ori’s head, followed closely by Ori’s body and a stack of books nearly as tall as it cradled in his arms, pops out from around a row of shelves. “It’s fine!” He mumbles an apology when he drops the stack on the table with a thunderous noise and Bilbo groans piteously. “Tell me about your day—your week!” Quick fingers flip and skim and discard the books in turn. “I’ve hardly seen any of the company since I’ve been up here.” Ori scowls as he reaches the last book in his pile; clearly none of them have been what he’s looking for, and Bilbo is growing steadily more concerned as something tightens in Ori’s voice like a string pulling taut. “I heard you were helping negotiate the trade deal with the Iron Hills?” 

“With the Grey Mountains,” Bilbo corrects, “and with Mirkwood. Trying to introduce some of my beloved greenery to this mountain before I turn the same colour as the porridge.” The thought of porridge makes his stomach churn and Bilbo gives into the temptation to press his cheek against the cool wood of the tabletop. “I’ll have to use some of my hard-won vegetables to celebrate, I think, since it seems like that may be the last deal I help negotiate.” Bile rises in his throat, but not from his night of drinking. “Though I imagine Thorin’s probably had quite enough of my meddling in his meetings—I’m just a hobbit from the Shire, after all.”

“I wouldn’t say there’s anything ‘just’ about it,” Ori argues, patting Bilbo on the back as he passes by to pick through another shelf. “I think Balin would miss having you there for certain,” a book narrowly misses Bilbo’s head on the table as Ori sets it down, “and just yesterday Dori was saying he’d’ve knocked the whitesmithing guildmaster’s teeth in if you hadn’t talked him out of it!”

“I’m glad I inspire such pacifism.”

Ori snorts. “It’s not what any of us expected, I don’t think, getting the mountain back and all that.” Another stack of books gets pushed to the wayside, and Ori bites at his lip. “I wasn’t anything but Balin’s apprentice back in Ered Luin, and now there’s dwarrow three times my age calling me _ Master Ori!” _ He cracks a small smile when Bilbo laughs (and immediately clutches his head). “And you’re so observant, you’re always spotting somebody’s nonsense ages away. We’re all so used to each other, being dwarrow and all, it can be hard to tell.” Ori’s searching grows increasingly frantic—a set of drawers squeal in their tracks as he yanks them open. “It’s always good to get an outsider’s perspective.” 

Before Bilbo can respond, Ori shoots upright and cringes. “Oh! Not that you’re an _ outsider! _ I mean—I just meant that—”

“It's fine,” Bilbo soothes, “I know how you meant it.” He keeps his voice low and calm, for all he can’t help the wryness that bleeds into it. “My, ah, skills of observation are likely what got me into this mess in the first place.”

And that really is the rub, isn’t it, that he’s got no one to blame but himself? Running off after a pack of dwarves at the arse-crack of dawn, that’s one thing, but this? This silly little notion he’d indulged, played at like a game, something to keep him occupied on the road—why_ yes, _ Thorin was plenty nice to look at for all that he had the personality of a sack of lemons, and _ yes, _ his arse looks rather fit in those trousers and _ my, _ how his arms flex under his tunic when he’s lopping off goblin heads left and right! Bilbo Baggins is no stumble-footed tween tittering at his first glance of wrist or ankle, thank you very much! Hobbits are creatures of comfort and plenty; he’s had many years to indulge in an appreciation for the finer things in life, and there’s certainly no shame in admitting that the sight of Thorin Oakenshield waist-deep and naked in some brutally cold stream east of Bree is absolutely one of them.

But then—oh, but then he’d gone and done it, hadn’t he? Mad Baggins, up there in his smial with his taste for adventure and his head in his great epic tales! It was all well and good to paint a dwarven king with broad strokes but no, Bilbo’s a writer at heart, captivated by those little details that really make or break the story. And when he sees them, he suddenly can’t stop. It’s all the small, quiet things: the way Thorin smiled when Fíli and Kíli clamored to tell him something or went out of their way to try and impress him. The way he leaned forward when Balin or Óin spoke. How he sat endlessly through Glóin’s stories, ones he must’ve been there for himself, let alone heard about a hundred times since. It wasn’t until he’d stood to the side of the dais as Balin placed a circlet of slimmest steel on Thorin’s brow that it occurred to Bilbo that he was seeing the full picture _ (Thorin singing in his drawing room, twirling a spoon between his fingers to amuse a baby in Laketown, laying on his deathbed and taking responsibility without demanding forgiveness) _and that, worst of all, he rather liked what he was looking at.

“Sometimes I think I should make a break for it,” Bilbo adds, chuckling under his breath if only to avoid dissolving into melodramatic hysterics, “hightail it back to the Shire before those skills get me into more trouble than I can talk my way out of.”

“Oh Bilbo, you can’t!” 

Bilbo flinches, half-expecting Dori or Nori to come skidding around the corner to pound whatever had upset their brother into paste. With great effort, he cracks an eye open, then jerks his head up off the table so fast his vision wobbles as it struggles to keep up. Ori isn’t pouring over his stack of books anymore; he’s barely standing upright, a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table and his other hand twisting in the deep, rich red of his scribe’s robe. Bilbo slides off his chair and takes two steps towards him as Ori gasps for breath. “Ori! _ What _is going on?!”

“I can’t find it!” Ori wheezes, feebly trying to brush off Bilbo’s hands as Bilbo bullies him into sitting down. “I told him I would, I _ promised, _ and now I can’t find it!”

No small wonder; the Library is a mess of old texts that need repairing and new volumes brought by incoming dwarves that need cataloguing and sorting. “Ori, what are you trying to—”

“It was this book, I remember seeing it before all _ this,” _ Ori waves a frantic hand at the room as a whole, “got here, and I told Fíli about it—it’s all about expectations and rules and codes of conduct for the heir and it’s not where it _ should _be, I thought Mamassakûn reshelved it somewhere on the second floor—” 

“Ori—” 

“And I _ looked _ but it’s not there and I don’t know where it could have gone and,” Ori looks at Bilbo helplessly, “he just got tossed into it, Fíli did, it’s one thing being heir when the mountain is half the world away and something different when there’s nobility from the Iron Hills and the Grey Mountains and menfolk from as far south as Gondor or _ Harad _ coming—” 

“Ori, I really think you should—”

“I shouldn’t’ve promised him the book, I know that, I’d made it sound like it had all the answers and Fíli’d looked so _ happy—_Kíli’s still sick and now Fíli’s headaches will get worse when they should be getting better because of all the stress and—” Ori freezes, stricken. “Oh _ Mahal, _ I’ll have killed the crown prince and if I kill the crown prince they’ll never let me organize the southern annexes, and that’s where all the books on Moria are!”

“Fíli will know you tried,” Bilbo assures him, pressing a firm hand between Ori’s shoulder blades and resolving to ask Balin about getting some assistants into the Library who weren’t born in the Second Age, “and he’s hardly going to drop dead over a missing book.”

“What sort of friend am I if I can’t do this one simple thing I promised?” Ori demands.

Bilbo laughs outright at that, even as Ori gets enough of his bearings back to scowl at him for it. “I highly doubt your _ friendship _ is even remotely at stake here, Ori.”

Ori unclenches his hands from his robe with a hiss and flexes his fingers to get the stiffness out. “You think so?”

“Of all the—you two were practically engaged the whole way here, so I should really think not!”

Ori turns red fit to rival his robes. "I—Fíli's not—we aren't—" he splutters under Bilbo's baffled gaze before wheezing, _ "Pardon?" _

Bilbo knows Fíli is quite the dwarven catch, but Ori doesn't have anything to be modest about in his own right and Bilbo tells him as much. "Besides,” he adds, “the way Fíli looks at you, Ori he's besotted!" 

This, if anything, makes Ori look even more faint. A dreadful notion starts to curdle Bilbo's stomach. "Ori?" he hedges. "You and Fíli, you two are...?" He's not sure how to finish the question, but Ori shakes his head hard enough to rattle his beads. "Oh. Oh, dear."

Perhaps he’d’ve been better off taking Bofur’s suggestion and facing Thorin after all, for all the good Bilbo’s done here. His hangover pales in the face of the hollow horror of betraying a secret he hadn’t known he was keeping. “Ori, so you two, you aren’t—” Ori makes a weak sound of protest in the back of his throat, “alright, but—but you’d like to?”

Ori’s response is muffled by the press of his face into his hands, and Bilbo feels a pang of camaraderie; bookworms holed away in their cozy nooks, pining after heroes. 

“Ori,” Bilbo says gently, with no small amount of irony in recalling Bofur’s words to him the night before, “you should go talk to him. _ Believe _me when I tell you Fíli—” 

“I can’t just go _ talk _ to him!” Ori cries. “He’s the crown prince of Erebor!”

“Yes well, prince or no, it wasn’t thoughts of Erebor that kept him up at night all the way here, let me tell you!” Bilbo claps a hand over his mouth, backing up so quickly he clips his hip against the edge of the table. The bright spark of pain is enough to clear his head, and he pulls his hand away from his face to squeak out, “I am _ so _sorry.”

Ori smiles wanly and shrugs. He looks like he’d very much like one of the massive shelves to tip right over and squash him into jelly. “That’s okay.”

“I thought you knew.” He’d thought Ori more than knew, and Yavanna’s _ curls, _ to think of the number of times he’d nearly asked Dori what he thought of his little brother courting a prince! “I’m going to—” when no clever excuse comes to him, Bilbo resorts to the truth, “I’m going to go somewhere that isn’t here and sit very quietly, I think.”

“Oh, that,” Ori looks at the mess on the table like he’s seeing it for the first time, one hand shakily tracing the engraved cover of the book nearest him, “that sounds like a good idea.”

The handle of the door digs into his spine as he backs into it, and Bilbo fumbles for it one-handed until he can yank it open and squeeze through the gap. Ori is still staring blankly at the table as Bilbo shuts the door and collapses back against it, heart hammering in his throat. What had he _ done? _ At this rate he’d have both Thorin and Dori demanding he was tossed out of the mountain by the hair on his feet!

The hard press of wood against his back does wonders to calm him, steady and firm as his hands flutter, straightening his waistcoat and running shaky fingers through his curls as he waits for his pulse to slow. Finally, properly righted and eyesight no longer darkening at the edges at the pace of his frantic heartbeat, Bilbo tugs at his waistcoat one last time before pushing away from the door and setting off briskly down the hall, intent on getting himself somewhere quiet and secluded where he can keep from causing any more mayhem.

A plan which goes apace for all of ten seconds, before he turns the corner into a corridor that will presumably take him to the kitchen, and smacks face-first into somebody’s chainmail.

“Bilbo?” Fíli’s hands grip his shoulders to steady him as he staggers, holding him at arm's length to look him over. “You came around the corner so fast, I didn’t see you!”

“I’d rather you hadn’t,” Bilbo mutters darkly under his breath, bristling in Fíli’s hold. He’s just come from open court, more likely than not; the gold circlet is askew on his head and the buckles of his vambraces are half undone in his haste to be free of all that ceremonial nonsense. 

Fíli cocks his head to the side and Bilbo is reminded suddenly of Farmer Maggot’s dogs, stumbling over themselves in earnest confusion as they followed Maggot around. “You sure you’re alright? Your face is all red.” His lips twist strangely, like he’s not certain if he should grin or grimace. “Did you meet with Uncle at the Library already?”

Thorin was making his way to the Library? All the more reason for Bilbo to beat a hasty retreat. “I haven’t seen Thorin since,” Bilbo bites his lip, remembering exact when he’d seen Thorin last, “since the Mirkwood delegation left.” 

“Right, well he’d said he was looking for you,” Fíli explains, one hand falling away from Bilbo to fiddle with one of the beads hanging over his shoulder, “Bofur told him to try looking for you in the—” 

His pulse thumps in his fingertips as Bilbo clenches his fists, feeling for the world like a hare in a trap—Ori behind him, Fíli before him, Thorin lurking somewhere ever closer, and the pressing weight of his own anxieties and fears and this thrice-damned bloody _ headache— _

“Do you want to get married?” He hears himself blurt abruptly, as if from a great distance, ears catching up to his mouth with dawning horror as Fíli arches an eyebrow.

“Are you propositioning me, Bilbo?" Fíli winks, squeezing Bilbo’s shoulder. "Because I don't think Uncle would approve.”

“Of course not!" Bilbo huffs. "I'm hardly a dwarf, let alone noble!" Fíli gets a queer look on his face then, like perhaps that wasn't what he'd meant at all, but it smooths over into an amicable enough smile when Bilbo pushes, "Not that it would matter to you if your spouse were noble or not, would it?"

“No, of course not, but Bilbo—”

Oh. It occurs to Bilbo that he may have missed another key point. "Much like it wouldn't matter if you took a wife or a husband, or—" and here his understanding of dwarven ideas of gender, as ramblingly and haphazardly explained to him by a tipsy Dori one evening, stretches a bit thin, "—or neither of the two?"

"Bilbo," Fíli frowns, brows furrowing, "of course it wouldn't matter, but I really don't understand why you're—"

He trails off suddenly, eyes moving to something over Bilbo’s shoulder, and Bilbo doesn’t even have to look to know that Ori’s standing behind him. Fíli’s face says it all, something soft and fond in his eyes, in the way his lips curl at the corners. 

For one jarring moment, Bilbo is sick with a greedy, ravenous jealousy, colder and deeper and _ older _ than he’d thought himself capable of.

And then the moment is gone, and Bilbo turns on his heel just as Ori clears his throat, screwing up his courage. “Fíli, can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, Ori, of course.” Fíli’s fond smile breaks into a crooked grin, and he nudges Bilbo with his elbow. “Come to proposition me too?”

Ori’s jaw drops, and Bilbo may’ve had the hangover spooked out of him but that doesn’t mean he’s ready for more headache so early in the morning. He throws his hands up and gives Ori a pointed look, replying to Fíli, “Bold words, Your Highness, considering we both know I’m much more fond of your lord brother.” 

“Hey!”

Rolling his eyes at Fíli’s offended squawk, he skirts out from between the two of them and turns down the stairwell to give them as much privacy as a conversation held in the middle of a hallway could ever be afforded. Let them sort themselves out and be all the better for it without his meddling, Bilbo thinks. “I may go visit him now, in fact,” he tosses over his shoulder, Ori’s suddenly panicked expression the last thing he sees, “as I’m sure you two have much to discuss!”

Kíli lets out a wild whoop when Bilbo rounds the corner into the infirmary, a greeting that would be far more endearing if he didn't do it every time. And if, every time, it didn't incur Óin's grumbled ire from down the hall. Bilbo stands patiently as Kíli sweeps papers and books to the far side of the blankets with one of his crutches to make space for Bilbo to flop face-first onto the bed.

“Rough morning?” Kíli asks, and snorts when Bilbo groans dramatically in reply. He pokes at Bilbo with his uninjured foot. “It’s hardly past breakfast!”

“If you don’t stop nudging me,” Bilbo turns his head free of the blankets to hiss, “I’ll toss your crutches down the mountainside and where will you be then?”

“Oh no, stuck in this bed?” Kíli deadpans, nudging Bilbo again even though it earns him a swat, “Staring at the same walls I’ve stared at the last two months? Oh please, Bilbo, please don’t hurt me so. I couldn’t bear it, I really couldn’t.” 

“It would serve you right.”

“It’d be a cruel and unusual torture, Mister Boggins. I don’t know how you hobbits mete out justice, but we dwarrow have some concept of mercy!”

Bilbo smiles despite himself, sour mood easing at the merry tease in Kíli’s voice. It’s been nearly long enough that the cold shock of dread at how close they’d all come to never hearing it again has started to fade, if only barely. Seemingly injured far less severely than his brother or uncle, Kíli had been afforded the least attention as the healers fought to save them all. And already weak from his injury in Mirkwood, it wasn’t until they’d found him clammy and pale in the throes of fever one morning that Óin had discovered the slivers of bone from his broken leg that were poisoning his blood. (“Trials and tribulations of the spare heir,” Kíli had teased when the fever finally broke, slipping back to sleep smiling when Tauriel had laughed with helpless relief at his joke.) 

Bilbo looks significantly at the stack of papers shoved to the far side of the bed, tamping down the remnant of that terrible fear. “If you’re so dreadfully bored, Kíli, you could always get back to reading those complaints from the guildmasters.” 

“I’m beginning to sympathize with Smaug,” Kíli tells him as Bilbo hauls himself to sit upright. “I’d’ve run screaming from the mountain too if you’d come storming in to scold me like this.”

“You and I recall the events of that night very differently,” Bilbo replies tartly, “not least of all because I have it on good authority that you spent a fair part of it staring moonily up at your lovely elven bride.” 

“I was _ dying!” _Kíli cries, red flush high on his cheeks with embarrassment. At Óin’s ornery shout, he ducks his head and continues lowly, “And besides all that, she’s not my bride!”

Not yet, he doesn’t need to add—if there’s anything the dwarves of Erebor have taken both completely for granted and in _ startling _stride, it’s Kíli and Tauriel together. Not a soul in the mountain went long without hearing the tale of how Tauriel had bluntly refused to return to Mirkwood if it meant forsaking Kíli. “I don’t know why you think Dís is going to arrive and change her mind, when she’s as much as calling you married in her letters already,” Bilbo says. 

“I know, I know,” Kíli mumbles, mouth twisting with a frown, “Mum will love her. Dwalin and Uncle wrote to her too, if you’ll believe it, singing Tauriel’s praises.” He makes a face. “Well, Dwalin thinks it’s hilarious she asked him to train her with his axes, but he didn’t say no.”

“They’re taking to Tauriel much better than I expected,” Bilbo comments, worrying the edge of the blanket between his fingers. She’d landed herself in Óin’s gentle care helping to heal Kíli, slipping in despite Óin’s moratorium on looky-loos hanging around while he dealt with patients and summarily taxing herself to exhaustion before anyone caught on. It was after he’d finally emerged from settling both Kíli and Tauriel into a cleaned-out room in Erebor’s infirmary that Tauriel had received the unofficial seal of approval. Óin had slammed the door shut behind him, tugged on his beard, and informed the assembled company curtly that _ she’s fine, that one. _

Kíli huffs a laugh. “I think her refusing to go back to Mirkwood unless she could still court me worked a lot in her favour.” 

“Yes, well I imagine anything that spites Thranduil would endear her to your uncle.” For all that Thorin hated elves, all it had taken was one murmured conversation with Kíli at his bedside once they’d both been moved into the mountain. Bilbo had peeked from around the edge of the door frame—along with most of the company, in the event the conversation led to a shouting match too strenuous for either injured idiot—unsure of his welcome now that Thorin was awake and lucid again. 

(Bilbo doesn’t remember much of being held over the ramparts in light of everything that followed, but he does remember this: Thorin’s voice, steady and cold and ordering him thrown to his death, was the most lucid Thorin had sounded in _ days.) _

“I think they might’ve preferred she was one of the menfolk," Kíli admits with a shrug, “or maybe even a hobbit rather than an elf but—” Kíli suddenly looks surprisingly sober and, Bilbo thinks, far too old, “but there’s so much that can change so quickly, so why squander love when we do find it?”

Bilbo stares at him, taken aback. “Kíli, that's awfully mature of you.”

The prince breaks into a sunny grin, young and flippant again, but Bilbo can’t unsee that vein of iron in him now. “I have my moments.”

“Ah yes, few and far between, so don’t go getting a swelled head over it.” Bilbo scoffs, enjoying Kíli’s thunderous scowl. He adds, all joking aside and with simple earnesty, “So long as you’re happy.”

“I am,” Kíli replies after a moment’s pause, “or at least, I know that I can be.” He leans back against his pillow with a sigh, picking at a loose fiber on the wrapping of his leg. “I knew she was something special from the start, but there’s something about having the _ full _ force of her attention on me that—” he shakes his head, looking wondrous and a little lost, “that suddenly I know there’s so much _ more _ to her than the idea I’d built up, and I get to spend my time getting to know all of it.” Kíli turns to look at him and Bilbo hurriedly blinks, traitorously misty-eyed. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Well, I—” Did he? Bilbo bites at his lip, remembering when the spotlight of Thorin’s attention had first really settled on him. In those small hours, after the eagles had left and he was still thrumming with adrenaline, the way Thorin had sat by him—not so close that anyone could say that he was sitting _ with _ him, but near enough that Bilbo could stare up at the stars while his heart clamoured in his throat and he relived the suck and pull of yanking his sword from a warg’s skull without feeling like he was going to fall to pieces and float away. And then like a dam breaking, all the small things he’d not noticed before, ignored in his ire at Thorin’s manners or overlooked in the constant threat of danger: how _ awkward _ Thorin was, how he fidgeted with a lace on his tunic so one end always wound up longer than the other, or drummed his fingers on Orcrist’s hilt whenever they were forced to stop. How he would wake up at every change of the watch whether it was his or not, just for a moment, just to make sure everything was alright. How he had _ opinions! _ Not necessarily good or reasonable ones, as Bilbo discovered while they bickered back and forth to pass the endless miles of walking, but opinions on tea and books and pipeweed and trade. How Thorin would pause sometimes and blink, startled, as if he too had forgotten that he was a person under all the trappings of being the king.

“Bilbo?”

Kíli’s hand rests gently on his arm and Bilbo jumps, suddenly aware he’s trailed off to stare blankly into the middle distance. He shakes his head clear of maudlin thoughts and squeezes Kíli’s wrist with his free hand. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

The prince’s grin is sly but his eyes are kind enough that Bilbo almost can’t bear meeting them. “Oh?” Kíli croons, “Some old flame back in the Shire?”

“Hardly! Any lass in the Shire would despair of me as a suitor, Bag End as part of the pot or no. Too eccentric, you see.” And all the better for it, he doesn’t add. He doesn’t miss the solid decade of persistent mothers dragging their daughters by their petticoats to tea at Bag End before he’d aged into his peculiarities and out of their roster of suitable husbands. 

Kíli arches an eyebrow. “No gentleman callers?”

Bilbo arches an eyebrow right back. “In the Shire? _ Very _ few and far between, and only calling at the back door—of my _ smial, _ you ingrate!” he hurries to add when Kíli starts to snicker. He frowns sternly until Kíli’s laughter trails into helpless chuckles he hides behind his hand, before explaining, “That sort of thing, in the Shire, it’s—not frowned upon, exactly, but it’s not common. And anything not common is—”

“Eccentric,” Kíli finishes, bitter bite to his tone belying exactly what he thought of such nonsense.

“Precisely.” Bilbo sighs. "I suppose I’ve always known what I’ve wanted, and it's just been a matter of accepting that it’s not what I’m supposed to want." He winks at Kíli and taps his finger against the side of his nose. "Not unlike a prince I happen to know, come to think of it."

Kíli smiles at that, absently, and he looks down at his fingers twisting in the sheets. "I forget sometimes," he says eventually, just as Bilbo starts to worry, "that you had a whole life before all this, that we showed up and took you from." 

"I forget it sometimes myself," Bilbo tells him, "but don't you wheedle your way into the same complex your uncle's got!" Kíli’s head jerks back up, brows furrowed. "You lot didn't _ take _me from anything. I went willingly, and I’ll have you know I don't regret a single step of it."

Kíli considers this. "Not even when you stepped into that rabbit snare outside Bree?"

Bilbo makes a face and thumps Kíli's good leg as the prince laughs himself sick at the memory, hard enough that Bilbo hears Óin come stomping down the hall and prepares himself for an unjust scolding. "Perhaps only the one very specific step."

Determined to keep himself from causing any more chaos in Erebor, Bilbo spends the better part of the week avoiding it entirely. Instead he makes a nuisance of himself in Dale, weeding out both the stores of seeds the elves had brought to prepare for planting in the spring and the crop of new ministers that had sprung up around Bard like daisies (and, in Bilbo’s opinion, that circled like vultures). For all that he couldn’t bring himself to take Bofur up on his advice and talk to Thorin, Bilbo was more than content to put the menfolk through their paces.

“By spring I may not have a council left to me at all,” Bard mutters, scrubbing a hand across his stubble as yet another ill-fated councilman stormed from the room, cursing every halfling under the sun and Master Baggins in particular.

“Then I suppose you’ll have to appoint Tilda,” Bilbo replies, finishing a line of his notes and glancing up, “since I’ve been summarily informed that she knows practically everything at the ripe old age of eleven.”

His answer startles Bard into a laugh, and across the long hall a councilwoman who’d earned Bilbo’s approval (and an old Baggins recipe for shortbread, for when there were enough supplies to go around for it) looks up from her work. “Perhaps I should appoint you, Master Baggins, for I doubt you’ll demand I pay you in sweets or shooting lessons.”

“None of that Master Baggins business, if you please,” Bilbo demands, then asks, “You won’t pass it on? I thought Sigrid and Bain could already shoot?”

“They can, but I’m not so old yet that I’ll take it on the chin gracefully when I’m outclassed by even my youngest.” Bard stares at the paperwork before him with the bleak resolve of a man discovering how ill-suited he is for bureaucracy. “Are you sure I cannot tempt you to stay? For lunch, at least, if not for the next decade or so.”

“The lunch, certainly! As for the rest of it,” Bilbo swallows thickly around a sudden lump in his throat, “I’m afraid I’m due back in the Shire before long. As early as the spring, by the looks of things.”

“I’m surprised Thorin hasn’t locked you in the mountain yet.” Bard hears immediately how his words sound and winces. He means nothing vicious by it, Bilbo’s sure—practically the minute Thorin had been well enough, he’d stormed off to Dale to speak with Bard before the company could stop him—but some wounds were still raw and aching. Bard pinches the bridge of his nose and smiles weakly when Bilbo doesn’t comment on his blunder. “I’ve had the pleasure of your company for only three days and already I’m loathe to let you go. I think I’ve gotten more done these few days than the entire month before!”

Bilbo sets the paper aside for the ink to dry, scoffing at the humility. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Bard, that’s a bad habit for a king.”

“You’d rather I take all of the credit and none of the blame?”

“I’d rather you find yourself a better batch of ministers before I come to visit next!” Bilbo stands with a groan and squints out the window as the sun peeks over the tops of buildings newly restored. “Now, you had said something about lunch?”

Bard had, and through Bilbo’s increasingly unsubtle attempts to delay returning to the mountain, the lunch had turned into both tea and a scathing dressing-down of some snake-oil salesman of a merchant who’d wandered in to cause trouble. It wasn’t until the sun had crept its way far beneath the rooftops of Dale that Bilbo said his goodbyes and made the slow march back to Erebor, intent on waving a hello to the guards at the gate and promptly squirreling himself away in his rooms.

He spots a cherry-red pinprick in the distance as the gate into the mountain looms up before him, and doesn’t think anything of it until it’s too late. The bright spot against the creeping night swiftly resolves itself into the lit bowl of Bofur’s pipe, gripped between his teeth as he sits on a lingering pile of rubble just before the entrance and whittles away at something. 

Bilbo jerks to a halt, mouth set in a thin line. “Oh, don’t you start.”

“Thorin was looking for you today, before he left for court,” Bofur says in lieu of a greeting, eyes still fixed on the block in his hands. “An’ he looked mad enough to chew coal and spit diamonds, so I’d reckon that meeting with Thranduil went to pot instead of to plan.”

Had that been today? Bilbo winces, an apology already pressing between the clench of his teeth. But instead, he squares his shoulders, says, “Thank you for letting me know,” and strides through the gates without a backwards glance. 

(If he pretends not to hear Bofur’s snort of laughter that follows him into the mountain, that’s his own business.)

For all that Erebor grows more crowded by the day, Bilbo makes it to his rooms without running into anyone else. He unwinds the scarf from his neck and hangs his coat and generally feels quite pleased with himself—hobbits were quick and quiet on their feet indeed, as Gandalf had insisted all those months ago, and he’d made his way home with nearly none the wiser. Humming softly under his breath, Bilbo steps into the cozy sitting room that precedes his bedroom, intent on investigating what smelled like a supper that had been thoughtfully brought up for him.

He doesn’t scream his fool head off, already reaching for Sting at his waist when the dark shape looming in the corner resolves itself into a person stood at the far end of the table, but it’s a near thing.

“Master Baggins.” Thorin rumbles, arms crossed over his chest and heavy fur cloak fastened at his throat making him look broader and more imposing than usual. Bilbo suspects that may very well be on purpose. “Good evening.” 

Bungo Baggins, resting comfortably in the earth far to the west, could at least lay content knowing that even in the most dire of circumstances and for want of any other reaction, he’d at least raised his son with impeccable Baggins manners. Bilbo clears his throat, choking out a stilted, “Good evening,” as he looks at anything in the room except the dwarf so clearly demanding his attention. The food someone had left out is still warm and so he starts to pick at it, feeling Thorin’s glare on him like a knife at the back of his neck as he messes about with pouring them tea and scrutinizing every piece of hardtack and cram before picking one. “I thought you held open court today?” he asks, the picture of pleasant small talk. 

“Aye, I did,” Thorin replies, voice rough with some unnamed thing that Bilbo assumes is slow-burning rage, “but I begged off it for the evening.”

“You? Shirking?” Even to his own ears, Bilbo’s laugh sounds tinny and strained. 

“It hardly matters.” Thorin tugs at the clasp holding his cloak, tossing it over the back of a chair. “Court or no, there is still dissatisfaction for me to contend with.”

“Dissatisfaction?” Bilbo grimaces; those posturing guildmasters hadn’t started up their nonsense _ again, _ had they? “Whose?”

Thorin barks out a laugh, sharp and humourless. “I’ve spent too much of this day trapped in word games, Master Baggins, to play yet more with you.” He turns so sharply to face him that Bilbo jumps. “Whose dissatisfaction? Yours.”

The floor lurches dizzyingly under his feet. _ “Mine?!” _

“Yes, yours! Have you so much of it that you’ve forgotten it all? Shall I recount it for you?” Thorin steps forward again before he thinks better of it, and he turns to pace in front of the fireplace like a beast barely contained. “First, I hear that you believe I want you ousted from the mountain because you wished to plant some elvish shrubbery. Then, that I find your presence in my council needless and bothersome, and _ then _ that you are being kept in the mountain like treasure in a hoard, barred from returning to your home and the life you were meant to have before we stole you from it!"

Bilbo gapes at him in open-mouthed shock. “Have you lost your _ mind?” _It’s a cruel thing to ask, after everything that’s happened between them, but he’s too stunned to stop himself.

“I begin to wonder,” Thorin snarls, “if so much goes on before my very eyes that I don't see—things that my nephew still in his sickbed learns of with great ease!"

“For all you talk about sickbeds," Bilbo snaps, “how was I to know I was welcome at yours? You'll recall you've not yet lifted that banishment, Your Highness!"

Thorin flinches like he’s been hit, blood draining from his face and shoulders tense, and Bilbo could curse his stupid temper to Beleriand and back! Now _ certainly _ Thorin would think Bilbo held a grudge. “And for all you speak of banishment,” Thorin says finally, “one would think you were chained to the mountainside.” He pauses again, rubbing a hand across his face. The lamplight casts the exhausted shadows under his eyes in stark relief. "Though you've finally convinced Ori to tell us he intends to court Fíli, and that's won me a hefty sum from both his brothers on a bet that’s been dragging on for the better part of a decade, so for _ that _at least I will commend you—”

Bilbo flushes, momentarily distracted from his confusion. He combs the hair back from his face for want of something to do with his hands. “Ah, yes, well. Glad to have helped, as it were.” Though it likely won’t endear him to Dori next time a couple merchants need their heads knocked together. 

“—but I see you’ve aired your grievances to everyone under the mountain except those at whom they are directed.” 

Bilbo doesn’t so much lower his hand as it flops, unbidden, and raps his knuckles against the table. “Aired my _ grievances?” _

“Aye, your grievances,” Thorin snaps. “I had known life under the mountain might sit ill with you, but I had thought—” The muscle in his jaw jumps as he grits his teeth. “I had thought that we put our hurts behind us. That we could speak to one another as friends, and here I discover—not from you, mind, but I am _ told _ by others whom you _ do _ trust with your secrets—that you are so ill at ease here that I can only assume you’ve stayed so long out of a misplaced sense of obligation, or of _ guilt.” _ He spits the word like it’d burn him to keep it between his teeth, and Bilbo very nearly scoffs at that. What a rich thing to say, coming from a dwarf who wears penance like a second mantle. “And if either is the case, it can only bring you relief to know that no oath or expectation demands your presence here if it’s against your will to even _ exist _ in the same mountain as—” 

_ “Thorin!” _ Bilbo stomps his foot and feels very much like a vexed tween, but it has the intended effect—Thorin cuts himself off mid-tirade, jaw clicking shut. He stands so still and tense that he practically _ shakes _with it. Perhaps it’s a trick of the light or his own hammering heartbeat as he struggles to keep his anxieties from running away with him, but Bilbo swears he sees the fine chainmail of Thorin’s hauberk trembling.

Thorin waits, silent and unimpressed, arching an eyebrow as the ire flees Bilbo as quickly as it had come on and he’s left shuffling awkwardly.

"Hold—Thorin, hold on just a moment." Bilbo bites his lip and flinches when he tastes blood. "I think," Bofur's words come back to him, unbidden and ridiculous but terribly appropriate, "I think we're pointing at opposite ends of a mule and both calling it the ass."

Thorin doesn't so much as crack a smile. "We're _ what?" _

Oh, confusticate Bofur and his stupid tin tongue! "We're having a misunderstanding!"

What little light was in Thorin's expression shutters completely. "Aye," he bites out, "we are." He holds up a hand when Bilbo opens his mouth. "I've misunderstood your affections for me. I had thought—" Not three months ago he'd been run through and left to die on the ice, but for all Bilbo can tell, Thorin seems to consider this conversation the more painful endeavour by far. "I had _ hoped _ that you cared for me. That you concerned yourself with my feelings in return." He adds, tight and formal, a stranger in king's armor again, "I see now that I am mistaken, and must beg your forgiveness."

Bilbo shuts his mouth and stares bewildered at Thorin for so long that the king starts to shift from one foot to the other. After a while, he opens his mouth—only to shut it again. Shakes his head, tries the whole gambit once more to much the same conclusion, and a cramp shoots down his palm from how hard he’s wringing his fingers together. Bilbo fumbles for a knife set out on the table just within his reach, cool metal against his skin to calm his scattered thoughts, and wonders when he’d started feeling safest with something sharp to wield. 

When he finally finds the mettle to speak, Bilbo can’t tell if his voice is as soft as it seems through the roaring in his ears, but it doesn't matter. Thorin hears him well enough. 

“Two hours,” he murmurs, staring somewhere past Thorin, eyes catching in the lamplight. “I held your insides _ in, _ where they belong, for two hours.” Bilbo glances down at his hands like it’s the first he’s really seeing them. “I kept your stupid, pompous, bullheaded,” and maybe he’s being a little harsh, judging from the thunderclouds gathering on Thorin’s brow, but he’s too worked up to curb his tongue, “honourable, lousy, clever, wonderful arse from _ dying _ in the _ snow _ with _ these hands _ and you’re going to stand there and _ dare _ to—if I—” Bilbo splutters with rage, boiling over like a kettle unminded. “Do I _ care _ about you? Do I _ concern myself _ with your feelings?! You tit!” Suddenly, the indignant vocabulary of a Shire gentlehobbit doesn’t carry the weight of Bilbo’s fury. “You—You righteous, stodgy, melodramatic _ clothead!” _

Thorin weathers the storm of his wrath with a calmness that only infuriates Bilbo further. Thorin arches an eyebrow. “You think my arse is wonderful?” 

"You—you _ menace!" _ Bilbo brandishes the knife in his fist like he's holding Orcrist. "If you'd take off your shirt right now, Thorin Oakenshield, I'd finish what Azog started and fillet you like that fish Dwalin packed down his gullet when I first let you sorry lot darken my doorstep!"

The tense silence stretches between them for a long moment before it’s broken by the sound of leather slipping through the buckle of Thorin’s vambraces. Bilbo only gapes and flushes all the way to the tips of his ears as Thorin pulls off his arm guards and hauberk and ornate belt one by one, dropping them on the floor with little care until he stands just short of Bilbo in nothing but his tunic and trousers and heavy boots. “Of all the ways I imagined you getting me out of my clothes, Bilbo Baggins,” Thorin rumbles, voice warm with amusement, “this is not one I pictured.” 

"Well I’d hardly want to ruin all your finery," Bilbo mumbles, cheeks red and hot as he looks anywhere but the stripping dwarf before him, "what with all the filleting."

“Sound reasoning,” Thorin replies, taking another step closer. “Might I convince you for a stay of execution?” His hands clasp Bilbo’s, gently prying the knife from his grip to set it back on the table. “Allow me to plead my case for mercy?”

Bilbo looks down at Thorin’s hand still gripping both of his and pulls it towards him. He watches Thorin watch him, wide-eyed with a tremulous awe Bilbo wants to tell him he doesn’t deserve, as Thorin brushes his knuckles down the side of Bilbo’s neck. “Oh, I don’t know. You’d have to be very convincing.”

The closest Bilbo had come before to kissing someone with a beard had been a man in the Prancing Pony, passing through Bree to some town in the south, with whiskery stubble and breath that smelled like ale. But this is nothing like it: the rasp of Thorin’s beard prickles Bilbo’s palms, soft and wiry under his fingertips as he cups Thorin’s cheeks and pulls him down to slot their mouths together. Thorin’s lips are chapped against his, likely from his penchant for dragging his teeth against them when he’s deep in thought, but warm and curved into a grin that Bilbo presses his own smile into. It’s dizzying, the warmth of Thorin’s hands against his hips, the way he rests his forehead against Bilbo’s as they break for air, just long enough to inhale before Thorin’s fingers catch the underside of Bilbo’s chin to tilt it upwards again. Thorin’s mouth against his is fierce and soft in turns, as if Thorin is trying achingly hard to be gentle and doing rather poorly at it when Bilbo’s tongue flicks against his own. But Bilbo has a measure of fierceness in him too, and his fingers curl into the hair at the nape of Thorin’s neck to yank him down further, pressing up against him and worrying Thorin’s bottom lip between his teeth as they pull apart. 

Thorin hisses and runs his tongue across his lip to ease the sting, and Bilbo nearly misses the hand reaching to tweak his ear in vengeance as he stares at that brief flash of pink. “You’re cross with me.”

“I do not possess the _ words,” _ Bilbo tells him, ear smarting, “in _either_ of the two languages I speak to properly express the sheer, unplumbed depths of my frustration but _ yes, _ you could say that I’m _ cross.” _With himself more than Thorin, at any rate—for all his talk of knowing what he wanted, he’d very nearly bundled himself back off to the Shire without it.

Thorin makes a face at this reminder that Bilbo knows Sindarin, but only says mildly, “There’s no need to be modest, Master Baggins. I’d say you’ve picked up enough Khuzdul to put you at two and a quarter, easily.” 

_ "Thorin—" _

"Besides," Thorin adds, softer now, eyes fixed carefully just over Bilbo's shoulder, "you would have plenty of time to learn more. Should you choose to stay."

Bilbo pauses in running his hands up Thorin’s chest, fingertips drumming against the ridge of Thorin’s collarbone. There is a weight to that observation, one that belies the casual ease with which Thorin had offered it. "Are you giving me permission to learn?"

"Oh aye," Thorin's smile is crooked and he laughs when Bilbo huffs at his cheek, "and offering private lessons with an expert, too."

"The picture of humility aren't you, Your Majesty?"

If Thorin replies with words, they’re lost to the rumble of his laugh as he tilts his head down to press a hot, lingering trail of kisses down Bilbo’s throat. But the rasp of beard and teasing nip of teeth against the thin skin of his neck is gone just as Bilbo gets it in his head to reciprocate. Thorin in his entirety is suddenly not where he ought to be, dropping instead to his knees in front of Bilbo. 

“Thorin, what are you _ doing?” _ The very idea, the King Under the Mountain on his knees in front of him so blithely! Bilbo scrabbles to try to yank him up, but he may as well be trying to haul the mountain to its feet for all the luck he has. “Thorin, get _ up, _you oaf—what are you doing?” He thumps his fists against Thorin’s shoulders. “Did you forget you’re the king between here and the door?” he hisses.

“As you’ve told me many times before,” Thorin says, “I may be king, but I am not _ your _king.” Hands reach up to grasp his hips, a firm but gentle hold that Bilbo could step free of whenever he wished. “I would not presume to rule you, Bilbo. Not in this.”

Bilbo stills in Thorin’s grip. “Oh.”

“I worried,” Thorin admits, with no prompting and like it pains him, “I thought perhaps I had given myself away—looking at you, trying to be nearer to you even after I had been so—such a—”

“Belligerent arsehole?”

Thorin heaves an exasperated sigh through his nose, but the achingly vulnerable thing flitting in the corners of his eyes and the nervous energy of his thumb tapping against Bilbo’s hip keeps Bilbo from needling him further. “Even after I had disregarded and disrespected your place in the company until it was nearly too late for me to recant my cruelty.” His mouth twists into a rueful scowl. “Again and again. But when you stayed, I thought perhaps you were being merciful for the sake of our friendship. And when I heard that you were planning to leave, I feared—” Thorin stops.

Bilbo tucks a lock of hair behind Thorin’s ear, fingers trailing to trace a bead at the end of a braid. “Thorin?”

“That you had stayed only out of obligation. Or duty you wished to see done.” Thorin turns his face away. “Or some fear.” 

Bilbo shakes his head and smiles, much to Thorin’s consternation. “Oh, you silly old dwarf.” Thorin pulls back, brows knitting together in irritation, but Bilbo stops him with a finger against his lips. “I’m not afraid of you.” He trails his finger down to Thorin’s chin, nudging it up to kiss at the corner of his mouth, and Bilbo really could get used to this. “I think I’ve had quite enough of fear to last me a lifetime, and I’d rather spend a lifetime full of something else.”

Thorin’s lips part under his, tongue coaxing its way inside to brush against his. Bilbo would’ve been content to stay there all night, leaning over Thorin, feeling the flex of his jaw in his hands as they kissed languidly, except—

“Really, erm—” Bilbo mutters, straightening to ease the twinging in his neck. Thorin tilts his head, the long column of his throat framed so nicely by his hair and shirt collar, and Bilbo groans feebly but musters on. “Any talk of me leaving is my own fault.” Thorin arches an eyebrow and Bilbo flushes. “I may have, ah, jumped to some conclusions myself, despite well-intentioned attempts to steer me away from them.” 

“Yes,” Thorin grumbles mulishly, “I believe I ran across some such similar intentions.” He leans forward again to kiss Bilbo but stops just short. Ignoring the noise of protest Bilbo makes, Thorin frown suspiciously. “But wait, what was it that made you think—”

Bilbo slots their mouths together before Thorin can finish, scratching his nails against Thorin's scalp and grinning when he shudders and groans, question forgotten. Still, Thorin pulls back enough to mumble something against his lips that Bilbo doesn’t catch. “Hmm?”

Thorin pulls back further with a lingering swipe of his tongue against Bilbo’s and asks again, “Would you say I’ve plead my case well enough to avoid the wrath of your filleting knife?” Bilbo clicks his tongue, humming consideringly and Thorin laughs, arching up prettily under him. His hands slide up to Bilbo’s waist. “Have I not convinced you, my lord?” He bats his eyelashes until Bilbo laughs. “Have I not groveled enough?”

“Oh, I’m not sure about that! I think I rather like you on your knees,” Bilbo teases, marveling that he can reach to trace a finger along Thorin’s cheekbone, that Thorin welcomes it.

Thorin leans into the touch, pressing his cheek to Bilbo's palm. “I rather enjoy the view myself.”

The low rumble of his tone shifts suddenly from light and easy fondness to something darker; Thorin on his knees takes on new meaning, hands tight on Bilbo’s hips and lips red and kiss-swollen. Bilbo's blood rushes south with such alacrity it leaves him a bit lightheaded as Thorin presses a kiss into his palm. He can't not notice the tent pitching itself in Bilbo's trousers right in front of him, and when Thorin sits back on his heels, the bottom plummets out of Bilbo's stomach. His mouth drops open to spew desperate apologies, but before he can get a word out, Thorin leans forward and holds Bilbo's gaze as he mouths at the line of Bilbo's cock through his trousers.

The groan that rips from Bilbo's mouth echoes back at him from the recesses of the ceiling and Thorin's eyes drop back to his work, a flash of blue under dark lashes, satisfied that Bilbo hasn't demanded he stop. His breath is warm and as he drags his lips upwards there is the lightest glance of his teeth, muffled by the fabric of Bilbo’s trousers into something tantalizing instead of dangerous.

“I would have you out of your finery too, Master Baggins, if it pleases you,” Thorin croons against Bilbo’s stomach, fingers plucking at the buttons of his waistcoat. Bilbo stumbles to yank his shirttails from his trousers, and how dare Thorin pay him back in his own coin like this, smirking so smugly as he helps Bilbo shuck off his trousers and smalls and laughs outright as Bilbo all-but tosses them across the room. But for all his humour Thorin is just as impatient, hands grasping at Bilbo’s backside to tug him a step forward. Thorin ignores Bilbo’s muffled whine as he skirts past his cock to duck his head and mouth roughly at his sack, encouraged by Bilbo’s startled gasp and the clutch of hands in his hair. He pulls away to press open-mouthed kisses along the ridge of Bilbo’s hip, and if the prickle of beard against his cheeks was exquisite, the brush of it against the sensitive skin of his thighs robs Bilbo of any response but a whimper in the back of his throat. Bilbo tugs at the hair twined between his fingers and feels the rumble of Thorin’s laugh against his hip, a breathy tease as Thorin steadies Bilbo’s cock with one hand and finally, finally takes him into his mouth. His lips meet his fist and Thorin glances up at Bilbo from behind lowered lashes, cheeks hollowing as he sucks. 

Bilbo cries out at the sudden heat and wet slide, the steady grip of Thorin’s hands on the backs of his thighs doing the better part of keeping him upright. His blunt nails are pinpricks of sensation to focus on as Thorin licks a circle around the head of his prick, teasing at the slit, lips trailing down the shaft before coming up again to let it press inside the blazing warmth of his mouth. The sight of Thorin on his knees, lips stretched around him and humming with contentment is almost too much for him to bear but he can’t look away, can’t keep his hands still—winding thick locks of hair around his wrist, tracing the curve of Thorin’s cheek, cupping a hand against Thorin’s throat to feel him swallow around Bilbo’s cock, eagerly taking him to the root and breathing heavily through his nose.

Thorin’s hands on Bilbo’s backside turn bruising, urging him to rock into his mouth. Bilbo follows the insistent pull, thrusts clumsy and stilted at first, one hand scrambling to brace against Thorin’s shoulder. It must hurt, his nails digging into Thorin’s back, his neck, scraping against the edge of his collarbone— 

The rush creeps up on him, coiling tight in his gut and Bilbo tugs sharply at Thorin's braid in warning, voice lost in a choked groan. But Thorin digs his fingers harder into Bilbo's skin, pressing him deeper and swallowing around him. Bilbo comes with the slick heat of Thorin’s tongue against the underside of his prick, curling over Thorin’s head and running trembling fingers through his hair.

Dimly, he’s aware of Thorin’s hands and mouth leaving him as the dwarf sags back on his heels, but before he can find the voice to complain Thorin’s hands find his, untangling them from his hair and lacing their fingers together loosely. “And how was that,” Thorin asks, voice raw and hoarse, “for pleading my case?”

Bilbo huffs a weak laugh, the warm lethargy that follows a good bit of bedsport already slithering into his veins. He takes a stumbling step back, pulling at their joined hands to yank Thorin to his feet and then shoving him backwards into the nearest chair. He drags his nails down Thorin’s chest just to hear him gasp. “It’ll do.”

“I'm beginning to think my sources were a bit—” Thorin chokes off with a breathy moan as Bilbo slips his hands under his shirt and rolls a nipple between his fingers, _"—ah,_ a bit mistaken in their reports—" 

“I suppose I'll have to set the record straight then, shall I?” Bilbo replies and slides into his lap, fingers already pulling at Thorin’s laces. He presses his mouth to the hollow of Thorin’s throat just in time to feel him shudder when Bilbo takes him in hand, and decides that, after all, he and Thorin seem to understand each other much better face to face.

**Author's Note:**

> the name of the flower that starts this whole mess is meddled with a bit to sound more mirkwood or shire-y but it’s meant to be the columbine! also, i'm over on tumblr as [twelvemagpies](https://twelvemagpies.tumblr.com) come yell about tolkien shit with me


End file.
